Come On! // Director's Cut from 24-7 Prayer on Vimeo.

my week

Monday: Woke up feeling poorly. Wrote up a language observation. Went to class. Made cream of broccoli soup.

Tuesday: College. Lunch at Bright's with girls from college. Answered lots of questions about America and shocked them with the realisation that I am "almost 30!" Class dismissed early. Locked out of house. Afternoon spent in coffee shop. Book group to discuss The Pickwick Papers.

Wednesday: Did Laundry. Used Microsoft Access for the first time in IT. Made play dough. Class dismissed early. Knitting group.

Thursday: Out on placement. Built lots of spaceships and had a picnic in the house corner. Knitting and audio book in the evening.

Friday: Out on placement. Trip to W5. Was a shop keeper in Tesco for much of the trip. Knitting and audio book in the evening. Still feeling poorly.

Saturday: Interview at McDonald's. Ran errands. Went to market. Knitting and audio book. Watched The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Sunday: Feeling a bit better. Church. Lunch with friends visiting from England. Prayer group. Church.

i laughed when i saw him in spite of myself

It was snowing and I was all dressed up in Christmassy clothes and I just couldn't resist! Don't mind the poor webcamera work or how big it makes my nose look!

Last time I rode the ferry these guys were on board...

And yes, the fact that they made this video and that Mariah Carey Tweeted about it was news on the BBC website...

from a Christmas gone by...

Recorded December 2008

tonight's going to be a good night!

You can see the video of Kirstin's wedding here!

Although I'm sure you'll all be disappointed to know that the shot of me being flung across the dance floor by the father of the bride has not been included. I know I am.

sunday

It's the end of a rather lovely weekend.

Yesterday I did a bit of cleaning and lots of laundry and some knitting. Then I went to a small worship and prayer gathering which was slightly wonderful followed by an evening hanging out with friends discussing theology and irish history and fun things like that.

I was pretty sleepy and didn't wake up in quite enough time to go to church. So I had a quiet morning at home including a lovely quiet time. (That sounds rather redundant doesn't it? But you know what I mean, don't you?) Got all the laundry folded and put away, bed made up, room generally tidied. Wrote an update letter. Did some journalling. A lovely day.

Then I sat down with my knitting and watched the live action version of 101 Dalmatians on BBC iplayer and this rather fantastic movie which I purchased for £6 when I was at the north coast last weekend.

"There's a lot of attitudes going on around here... don't let me get one."

"Redemption? Sure. But in the end he's just another dead rat in a garbage pail behind a Chinese restaurant."

"If what I think is happening is happening... it better not be."

love it!!!

Also, my police check came in the mail yesterday which means I can start my placement this week. Yahoo!

this week

In the last seven days...

1) I enrolled and started school.

2) I purchased, and received, my course books.

3) I finished knitting a hat and a blanket and began a new project.

4) I started looking for work.

5) I registered for a National Insurance number. (The UK equivalent of a SSN.)

6) I went to a knitting group for the first time.

7) I had dinner at a friend's house.

8) I watched five movies, including South Pacific and Casablanca for the first time.

9) I opened a British bank account.

10) I booked a trip to Dundee next weekend and a trip to London the following.

11) I received, and set up, my printer.

12) I made a collage on a small notice/bulletin board for my room.

13) I visited my first wool/yarn shop in Belfast.

14) I went to the Linen Hall Library for the first time and was overwhelmed by their Irish section.

15) I've renewed friendships and begun to make some new ones.

16) I got caught in a heavy rainstorm and soaked my TOMS so that it took a couple days for them to dry out.

17) I had my first skype conversation on my new computer.

18) I did laundry.

19) I registered at the Doctors and applied for my medical card.

20) I played with legos and puzzles and painted a portrait of one of my classmates.

And at the end of it all I'm tired!

cleaning out my phone...

I'm switching back over to my UK phone today, so here's a few pics and videos I saved from my US phone:

Will likes his head covered when he sleeps...

Ben's Chili Bowl!

Emily, Luke, and Flower

We fed "Flower" a lot, but we're not exactly sure if she's a girl...

Alternate name if she turns out to be a boy, "Blue"

Graduation!

Will's Birthday!!!

a sort of kind of update

These are things I'm bad at doing when I live in the States and have a full time job: keeping up with all my friends who live here, there, and everywhere (and I mean that quite literally) and blogging. Also exercising, not eating too much sugar, and getting enough sleep. I'm sorry, I keep trying to be better about these things, and keep trying, and keep trying.

Anyway, here's a little update on the last few weeks:

* I think I mentioned that I've taken up knitting since being home. I L-O-V-E it! I've ordered a Boye Needle Master kit on ebay and it should arrive sometime next week. This is an interchangeable circular needle set which means I have (virtually) everything I could ever need to make anything I could ever want. (yeah!) And I finished my first project, a baby blanket for my soon-to-be-born nephew, Will. Here it is:

Incidentally, the bed spread it's laid out on was made by my grandmother. I couldn't post pictures of it before in case my sister read my blog and the surprise was spoiled.

*I love, love, LOVED the Olympics. Everything except I was a little disappointed by the closing ceremonies. But the opening ones were great! The competitions were great. The rivalries, the records set, the North American's showing in the medal counts. I really sort of wish that when I was young and we discovered that my ankles weren't strong enough to jump that I wouldn't have given up figure skating entirely, but would have switched to ice dancing...

* Had a baby shower for my sister yesterday. So much fun, and she got lots of great gifts! (Hence me being able to post pictures of the blanket.)

*Loving LOST, Grey's, and The Office these days. Had such a busy week that I missed each of them and just finished catching up. Only 10 more episodes of LOST. Pam and Jim have their baby. Andy finally asked Erin out! And Grey's feels like the good old days, with a healthy, happy Meredith which I like!

* Dreaming and wishing for Belfast... can't wait for the end of the summer.

* Plotting and planning and hoping for a trip to Iowa, Chicago, and Michigan in May/June... Watch this space.

*Went to see Young Victoria today with my sis, enjoyed it! Everyone else in the theatre was over 50 and the comments we overheard were hilarious. Best one right as the credits rolled: "Now that is a love story."

*Favorite quote from the baby episode of The Office: "You've gotta let the cookies cool before you pop them in your mouth." -Michael as Kevin leans in for a kiss (from Erin).

*Didn't realize The Last Station was out already, gotta see it! It's about the last few years of Tolstoy's life as this year marks the 100th anniversary of his death.

Guess that's all the big stuff. Wedding in 27 days, baby a few weeks after that!

cake and shoes...

what more could a girl want?

We had my sister Emily's wedding shower this weekend. Good friends, good food, good times. I forgot my camera in the car so these pictures, taken before and after, are all that I have until other's are posted on facebook. The cake is Lemon Mint Pound Cake, made by moi.

After the shower Lacy and I had some chicken fried rice from PFChangs and went to see Valentine's Day with her friend Meghan. It was... ok I guess. Then I was up most of the night with yucky stomach cramps, hello little-people-germs.

Spent Sunday in bed and on the couch, hooray for Winter Olympics interspersed with Gilmore Girls and random movies on TBS.

That was my weekend.

thoughts inspired by watching Adam

We have had a "wintery mix" day. Which is a phenomenon of Charlotte which involves slightly more ice than snow and causes everything to shut down for at least 24 hours or until it warms up enough for the roads to clear.

So I have spent the day inside doing not much of anything. (Also I've had a cold and so I didn't use this day productively at all...) I rented two movies in anticipation of this on my way home yesterday. I already watched Adam and have The Brothers Bloom soon to come. I was just thinking about a couple things...

First, isn't it strange when films have alternate endings? Thankfully this was just a slightly different take on the same ending. But sometimes it's a completely different thing and that bothers me. It bothers me because an ending is what makes the whole story. If you change the ending, it becomes a different story entirely.

Second, isn't funny when you have to explain to children what pretend or make-believe is? Children are generally so imaginative themselves, but it can be hard for them to be confronted with someone else's imagination. And then, when you have a child who doesn't understand imagination, usually because they are not at a developmentally appropriate stage, trying to explain it can be challenging!

That's all. I really enjoyed the movie, although I was a bit disappointed by the ending. (Both of them.)

for Lacy

a perfect poem for the ending of a year

~ e.e. cummings

i know everyone has been posting this recently...

But it looks amazing!

spiritual econometrics

Go HERE to watch some life changing teaching from my little sister.

a long awaited update (perhaps I flatter myself too much!)

So, I guess the last significant update into my day to day life was written way back in the beginning of July. (Was that only a month and a half ago???) So, I figured it was about time for another!

I was in Florida for just under six weeks. I went down to be a summer nanny for the wonderful girls I used to care for before I left to do Transit and their wonderful baby sister who was born while I was gone and their wonderful cousins who live in Jacksonville. I think I can safely say that everyone involved had a great summer.

We were right on the beach, as you can see from this picture. This is the spot where I did quite a lot of reading when I was "off duty," not bad, huh? The summer was full of sand and water and sun and origami and reading time and ice cream and the dynamics of little girl relationships and naps and trips to the park and trips to the girls' Papa's tree farm and good food and all kinds of other fun things like getting caught in the rain almost every time I went out for a walk in the evenings. And big, beautiful rainbows.

No summer would be complete without a trip to the zoo and this one included petting and feeding sting rays. (Their "stinger" had been trimmed, apparently much like you would trim your fingernails.)

We drove back to Charlotte on the 29th of July, I think. It was definitely a Wednesday. And that evening I booked my flight to Ireland. I fly into Dublin on the 12th of September and will make my way north to Belfast where I will be living until I find a job or run out of money which I project will be sometime in December! No, seriously, I'm heading to Belfast to job hunt and make connections and do some volunteering and have committed to stay through December, which hopefully will give me enough time to find a job so I can stay forever, or at least two years which is how long my visa will be issued for.

So, naturally, I'm excited and nervous and thinking about packing way more than I'm actually doing the packing. And I'm sure to run out of time to do several of the many things I have projected to finish before I leave. So it's all rather exhilarating and tiring.

On a sort of side note I saw movies 24 and 25 of the summer this week. Time Traveler's Wife with my sisters, Laura and Emily, and Nights in Rodanthe with my mom.

I feel a bit like Clare in the Time Traveler's Wife. (If you haven't seen the movie or read the book I'm going to be giving away plot here...) In the scene where Henry travels to and from the bathroom. She's very pregnant, but has tried to keep herself from hoping about this baby because she has lost so many before. Henry comes back from travelling to the future where he meets their daughter, Alba. He tells Clare all about her and she says, "You mean it's all going to be all right?" It was such a moving scene and I feel like her. There's this thing that I've been dreaming about and hoping for and working towards for so long, but because it's been so long it's so very hard to understand that it's really happening. That the dream is becoming reality. I think it can't be true.

But in three weeks from today I'll be sitting (well, sleeping actually) in Belfast. And I'll never again have to cry when I leave Ireland because I don't know when I'll be coming back. It's all rather overwhelming.

So anyway, that's my update.

a theatrical summer

I have seen a copious amount of movies this summer. More, probably, than I've seen in the last two years. It was a great way to pass the time on the weekends in Florida, when I was off work and my European History book was getting a bit... tedious. So here they are, the summer's movies:

June-
Earth
Land of the Lost
The Proposal
Australia*
Up*

July-
Away We Go*
The Tale of Desperaux
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Confessions of a Shopaholic*
Last Chance Harvey
Rachel Getting Married
New in Town*
Miss Potter
The Ugly Truth
Michael Collins*
Nick and Norah's Infinite Play List
G-Force

August (so far)-
500 Days of Summer*
Penelope
Waking Ned Devine
The Other Boleyn Girl
The Wind That Shakes the Barley*
Julie and Julia*

So that's 23 movies. Some of these were brand new in the theater and some have been out since the mid 90s, but it was the first time that I've watched any of them. The stars are movies I'd recommend generally. My two favorites were Confessions of a Shopaholic and Julie and Julia. And my favorite kids' movie (and all time favorite Pixar movie) was Up, which was fantastic!

more women should dress like us

So two weekends ago I visited my youngest sister Lacy in Tennessee where she goes to college. We had a great weekend. On Friday we went into Chattanooga and explored the city a bit. Fabulous independent bookstore where I found a copy of Pablo Neruda's Love Poems and Lacy found a wonderful little journal with birch trees. We saw The Proposal which was entirely predictable, but still enjoyable. We had great salads at Panera for dinner then crossed The Walnut Street Bridge for some ice cream from Clumpy's. The sunset from the bridge was beautiful and we just sat and enjoyed the evening. We walked past a man who said to us, "Good evening girls. Ya'll look great. More women should dress like you." We decided this must be because of our impeccable fashion sense and not because he thought we looked slutty. Sunset from the Tennessee River

Lacy

The Walnut Street Bridge

Sisters

On Saturday we went hiking in the Cherokee National Forest which was an adventure! The first half hour or so was fine, just following the trail and crossing the stream on rocks and fallen logs a couple times. Then we had to climb up the side of the mountain. That's when it got a bit interesting. As much as I love trail walking scrambling through the brush and decaying leaves full of large insects and possibly snakes is not my favorite thing. We made it down to our destination, a beautiful waterfall where we had lunch and soaked up the day and Lacy swam in the pool at the base for a while. (A short while as it was VERY cold.) When we decided to head back was when the fun really began. Lacy couldn't find the trail. You loose it on the way in and then have to climb back up to where you leave it to head back out. We were scrambling up and down and across the side of the mountain for a good 15 minutes when we came across an army back pack that had been lost or dropped or something. It had been there for a week or maybe less. Animals had gotten into it and strewn the contents. Prescription medicine, tins of food, a large package of ivory soap. And a machete. That was slightly disconcerting as we were half expecting to stumble on a body or hear the weak cries of an injured soldier. Anyway, I got tired of going back to the waterfall to start again and pushed ahead, blazing a trail in roughly the right direction. After a few minutes Lacy, who was lower down than me, called out, "I found the real trail!" Which was a huge relief to both of us! The rest of the day was taken up with snow cones and movies and easy dinners.

Giant millipedes were everywhere!

Lacy swimming in the pool.

Sisters

The waterfall and me

Staring up at the sky... This was my view!

The Waterfall

Snail and mushroom on moss

On Sunday we meandered our way to Atlanta where I caught a plane to Jacksonville, Florida. I'll be here until the 30th of July. So far, we're having a blast.

the green and the gold

This is St. Patrick. I took this picture on the Hill of Tara in the summer of 2006. I don't have my usual quote or info about St. Patrick today. I'm house sitting and have left my Ireland notebooks at home. Here is a post from a blog I read that does a great job (better than I would have) telling Patrick's story.

And if you don't want to read all that here's a little Veggie Tales clip about St. Patrick. I don't have time to watch it all now as I'm walking out the door to work. If I remember right it doesn't get quite all of the details correct, but it's rather funny to hear the story of St. Patrick told by a sock puppet voiced by an Indian worm.